Avianca Brasil Refreshes Fleet With 62 A320neos

Avianca airline group parent Synergy Aerospace Group on Wednesday completed a purchase agreement with Airbus for 62 A320neo aircraft. The deal, worth approximately $6.6 billion, will renew the fleet of Avianca Brasil.

Synergy became an Airbus customer in 2007 when it ordered 10 A350XWBs. Avianca Brasil currently operates 40 A320s and an A330 Freighter. The group, which also includes Colombia-based Avianca, has 20 more A320s on order, as well as six A330-200s and an A330-200 Freighter.

According to Airbus, intra-regional and domestic traffic in Latin America is growing at a rate of 5.3 percent annually and is expected to almost triple in the next 20 years. The Synergy agreement means that the European airframer has now passed the 1,000-sale mark in the continent.

Freighter Launch

Separately, DHL Express has become the launch customer for A330-300P2F passenger-to-freighter conversion offered by Elbe Flugzeugwerke (EFW), a joint venture between Airbus and ST Aerospace of Singapore. The U.S.-based cargo group is buying four aircraft for deliveries starting at the end of 2016. The A330-300s will be converted to a 26-pallet configuration with a payload of 61 metric tons.